Dealer had £50,000 of cocaine at his Leeds flat

Tony Gardner

A man who was caught with 1.5 kilos of cocaine worth over £50,000 when police raided his flat in Leeds has been jailed for four and a half years.

Officers from Leeds’s drugs and firearms team Operation Quartz made the discovery when they executed a search warrant at 37-year-old Kevin Jackson’s home in Bridgewater Court, Meanwood, in May this year.

The seized cocaine.

When officers searched the ground-floor flat they found carrier bags containing large compressed blocks of cocaine, weighing more than a kilogram, in a bedside drawer in the main bedroom.

Other amounts of cocaine were found in the flat along with half a kilo benzocaine – a dental anaesthetic used to bulk out deals of cocaine.

Electronic scales, latex gloves and grip-seal bags were also recovered.

An expert drugs officer gave the value of the drugs as between £45,266 and £54,320.

Sultan Ismail.

Jackson was jailed at Leeds Crown Court after pleading guilty to possession with intent to supply.

Det Insp Jaz Khan, of the Leeds Quartz team, said: “This was a very significant seizure of cocaine that was destined to be sold on the streets of the city. The use of Class A drugs and the criminality that surrounds their supply causes real damage to our communities.

“Jackson was clearly playing a key role in the supply of drugs and the significant sentence he has received should serve as a warning to others of the penalties they will face.

“Officers from Operation Quartz will continue to gather intelligence from the community and elsewhere and focus their attention on those who think they can get away with dealing drugs without having to face the consequences.”

A separate investigation by the Quartz team has seen a Leeds man jailed for 40 months.

Sultan Ismail, 25, of Temple View Place, East End Park, pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to possession with intent to supply heroin and crack cocaine.

He had been the passenger in a Skoda Roomster that was stopped by a marked police car in Burlington Road, Beeston, on June 25 this year.

Ismail appeared agitated and when searched was found to have various amounts heroin, crack cocaine and amphetamine in his pockets. The total street value of the drugs was found to be £10,615.

£500,000 boost for Archbishop-backed scheme to promote leadership skills in British schools